The present invention relates to a spring seat member to be attached to a coil spring and a spring assembly equipped with the same.
A spring seat member to be attached to a coil spring is disclosed, for example, in Patent Document 1. This spring seat member is composed of a seat body including an engaging groove portion and a clip member including an elastically deformable elastic locking piece.
The elastic locking piece of the clip member includes a locking portion to be engaged with the engaging groove portion of the seat body to attach the clip member to the seat body. Specifically, when attaching the clip member to the seat body, the elastic locking piece of the clip member is elastically deformed to be flexed radially outward, thereby moving the engaging portion of the elastic locking piece to the engaging groove portion of the seat body. At this time, if the elastic locking piece is restored from the elastic deformation, the engaging portion of the elastic locking piece is engaged with the engaging groove portion of the seat body. Further, the spring seat member, in which the clip member is attached to the seat body, is attached to the coil spring by the elastic deformation of the clip member. Specifically, the spring seat member is inserted into the coil spring by deforming the elastic locking piece of the clip member to be flexed radially inward. At this time, if the elastic locking piece is restored from the elastic deformation, an outer end of the elastic locking piece is engaged with an end turn portion of the coil spring and the spring seat member is attached to the coil spring.
In this way, the clip member is easily attached to the seat body in the spring seat member of Patent Document 1 and the spring seat member is easily attached to the coil spring.
In such a spring seat member, the end turn portion of the coil spring is engaged with the outer end of the elastic locking piece when a force acting to pull out the spring seat member from the coil spring acts on the spring seat member. Thus, an effect of suppressing the detachment of the spring seat member from the coil spring is expected. However, in such a spring seat member, when a force acting to pull out the spring seat member is applied, a component of that force may be concentrated on a part of the elastic locking piece. This may cause the spring seat member to be detached from the coil spring due to local breakage of the elastic locking piece or due to radially inward deformation of the elastic locking piece caused by the force acting to pull out the spring seat member.